


dark of ages past

by sunflowerbright



Series: Hotel California [10]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Depression, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Enjolras has only just made it inside the café when his phone rings, and its Combeferre and Combeferre sounds frightened.</i> </p><p>or, the one where Grantaire is incapable of so many things, but dying isn't one of them</p>
            </blockquote>





	dark of ages past

**_1832_ **

It does not help. Perhaps it should have, Enjolras’ gentle touch, the embrace, something Grantaire knows he has longed for perhaps forever (it feels like an eternity, certainly), and he had thought it would help, Enjolras had probably thought it would help, but alas it didn’t, it only left his skin hot and uncomfortable, left his heart beating and painfully aware that he had had the briefest taste of something he would never get.

He drinks and he drinks deep, stumbling inside, vaguely aware of Combeferre and Joly attending the wounded inside the café, of Bossuet gently pulling a jacket over a corpse, as if to shield its face would somehow make it less of something that had once held the spark of life, and had been brutally robbed of it now, on the point of a guard’s bayonet.

He is also aware of Enjolras watching him, from the door-way. He wonders if the man ever sleeps, and he almost wants to turn back around to ask, but there are words and gunshots ringing in his head, and the wine only dulls it so far.

Enjolras follows him anyway. Grantaire reaches the next floor, and the now empty bottle slips from his fingers, and he doesn’t even know if it breaks on impact or not, because Enjolras is there, shoving at him until he turns around to face him.

“What are you doing?” he asks, and there is desperation under the anger, and Grantaire rather thinks that Enjolras knows – more than he has ever known – that their deaths are soon to be upon them.

“Drinking,” he grins, only the bottle is empty. He wishes his heart was as well. “I am _drinking_ , dear Apollo, and now I rather wish you would let me sleep. That is alright, is it not?”

“Go and sleep somewhere else,” Enjolras cries out, his grip tightening in frustration.

“And where might that be?” Grantaire mutters, pulling himself away _(god, he wishes he doesn’t have to, he wishes he could stay)_ and practically falling into the very last seat, standing by the very last table. “Let me sleep, Apollo,” he says. Pleads.

He is met with only anger.

“Grantaire…”

“Let me sleep here until I die,” he implores. If he is asleep, he cannot be awake to see the cold corpses of his friends. Cannot be alive to see the marble statue bleed.

Enjolras’ eyes are blazing like the sun. “You,” he spits out. “You are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living _and_ of dying!”

It settles like a dead weight, words hitting him like any bullet would, but Grantaire steels himself, because the wine is dulling the pain and that is enough for now.

“You will see,” he says, and watches as Enjolras stalks out, hands clenched into shaking fists.

He sleeps and he wakes again when all is silent, his head worryingly clear. The sun is shining in through the windows, and it is over.

Grantaire wants to laugh, at the soldiers, at Enjolras standing there, sun against his back, head held high in defiance. He is alone. Alone, save for the soldiers meaning to kill him.

Grantaire is calm as he gets up from the table and walks forwards.

 

 

*

 

**_present day_ **

 

He’s drowning in a salty sea, water filling up everything, water or is it wine, he isn’t sure anymore. Perhaps it is the worried frowns when he downs another glass _(another bottle)_ , the remarks of a golden man, the gentle comments from a man of medicine.

He’s drowning but he’s also burning up, two different houses in the same town on fire, his mother screaming, crying for help from the window in one, the other abandoned, no-one but him standing there to watch it burn. He’s burning and he’s drowning, and he’s bleeding from bullet-wounds in his chest, _one, two, three_ and an extra for this life as well _(the officer at the barricade shot him, how could he shoot him, he was already dead),_ and he doesn’t snap out of it until Eponine is screaming, shaking his arm and yelling for him to come back.

“Grantaire!”

His eyes snap open – no that’s not right, they were open all along, open but not seeing, and now he sees her, looking wet and confused, but thankfully unhurt beside him.

“I’m fine,” he croaks out, throat dry. His head is pounding, he’s bleeding, his whole body is aching after hitting and lying on stone, and there is a thousand blaring alarms going off in his head, all screaming different things. “I’m completely fine.”

He’s clutching the watch so tightly his palm is starting to bleed from where the chain is digging into it, but Eponine doesn’t notice this, only takes his face gently in her hands to examine the blood on the side of it.

“It doesn’t look too deep,” she mumbles. “Are you seeing double?”

“No, you’ve always had a twin, right?” his voice is old and rusty, as rusty as the watch, _the watch Mabeuf had given him_ , and he’s gasping for breath again and Eponine’s eyes widen in fear.

“Grantaire!”

“You cross-dressed to join the Barricade! It was all for Marius wasn’t it? _You’re insane_!”

Oh. Eponine looks even more shocked now.

“You…”

“Oh, yeah. I think I remember now,” Grantaire states, swallowing heavily past the lump forming in his throat, _fuck,_ this isn’t right, this can’t be, was it like this for the others as well, this raging storm inside their heads, voices screaming, faces twisting, everything looking like a faded photograph of what you used to know, and… and…

_“Ooh, Marius! Not even aware of the girl’s real name, yet ready to drop it all in the name of love. I admire you, I do. It takes a special kind of foolishness to throw everything away like that. I daresay this is the most amusing thing to have happened all week!”_

How the hell do you stay sane like this?

 _“Wait. Stop. Long live the Republic._ Long live the Republic! _I am one of them.”_

_“Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing...”_

He’s reached out and fisted his hands in the lapels of Eponine’s jacket before he can even think about it, needing something grounding, needing her to _listen._

_“… of living and of dying!”_

“Shit,” he says. “Shit shit shit, fucking _shit_.”

“What? R… okay, fuck this, we need to get out of here,” God bless ‘Ponine for being practical. “We can get you some aspirin or possibly some heavier doses of some real shit, and then the hospital can stitch you back up, or your boyfriend can kiss it better or whatever, and then you can get high on medication and knock yourself out, and we’ll deal with this tomorrow, okay?”

“I love you. Have I told you that?” Grantaire is suddenly really worried. “We didn’t even… I saw you die, fuck Eponine, I saw you die back then, and I didn’t even know your name, I didn’t bother to remember because…”

“I know, Grantaire, it’s alright,” she touches his shoulder gently, a slight bump, what she used to do when they were younger and still half-strangers and too awkward to talk to each other properly: he’d gotten in the way of a hit from papa dearest, directed towards Azelma, and she’d wanted to say _thank-you_ , but never had, because Eponine Thénardier did not do thank-you’s, not when you were a little kid that needed to hold your family together, and the light touch had been… it had been the friendliest gesture Grantaire had received in almost two years, and he had known how much he had loved her then.

He calms down, almost immediately, and it’s not just the touch, it’s the newer memories, coming to the forefront again, marching back the old ones, and the weariness in her eyes that says _she knows_ , really knows, because hey, she was the one to die on the Barricade. She’s been through this too.

So he gets his shit together, for her sake and for his own. And he looks around.

“Where… where are we?”

“It’s the catacombs,” Eponine says. “I think. It looks like them. A bit. But I don’t… we must have fallen far, I can’t even see the hole we fell through: I don’t even know if there is one, the cracks are too small, there’s not enough light, unless it’s still dark. I don’t know how we survived if we fell that far. I don’t know where the water’s coming from.”

“It’s a street,” Grantaire mumbles, pressing his hand against the… it’s brick-stones underneath them. “It’s an old-fashioned street, under the city.”

“It’s the catacombs,” Eponine repeats, pointing behind him, and Grantaire turns his head slightly (slowly, because fuck it still really hurts), and is met with skulls set in the wall, hundreds, grinning facelessly at him.

“Oh. How lovely,” he mutters, trying to get his head around this, because it’s the catacombs, of course it is, makes sense, but it’s also _not_. It can’t be. “Hey, do you think _our_ bones are down here?” he remembers Musichetta’s crazy ghost-hunt that had resulted in them finding that damned old table. Eponine makes a face.

“Maybe. It’s a weird thought.”

“I could hold my own skull in my hand.”

“Gross, Grantaire.”

He grins at her, and knows it’s slightly manic, but he’s holding on by his teeth, here. “Admit it, you would so love to try it.”

She smiles slightly, shakily. “It would be a little cool.”

“Imagine how much we could freak Joly out. Imagine how much we could freak _Marius_ out.”

“You’re panicking aren’t you?”

“Thoughts of annoying Marius always calm me down.”

“Then keep thinking of that, and not how we are reincarnated souls from Nineteenth century Paris that fought to overthrow the government,” she says with a slight smirk.

“Oh my god, _you had to bring that up!”_

Eponine only smiles at him, though it fails to reach her eyes, and offers her hand to help him up, getting to her feet.

“Can you stand?” she asks, and Grantaire still feels like hell, but his feet are working alright, and her hand is warm and steady in his, a comforting presence, almost like an anchor…

He’s dug into his pocket, almost desperate, scared that it won’t be there, but then it is, a tiny little match-box that luckily hadn’t been crushed or gotten soaked and ruined during his escapade down here. He takes Eponine’s hand again, squeezing it slightly to let her know that he’s alright now, trying not to think of the other hand he had been holding only hours earlier.

Or, he thinks its hours. It could be a matter of only minutes. They could have been down here for several days. He flicks open the watch still in his other hand, trying to ignore the pain from the wounds it’s made, but it’s broken, of course, it’s probably older than he is counting both lives (and oh, he totally gets to do that now, officially and whatnot. The thought is strange. He wonders if he should start smoking a pipe and grow a long white beard.)

“Should we find a way out, or should we wait for someone to come and get us?” Grantaire asks. “I mean, we could end up anywhere, and it’s not exactly safe: if the fucking street is any indication, this place could cave in any moment and bury us or make us fall even deeper until we hit the very lowest pit of Hell. Dante says it’s cold, and I’m not wearing my warm jacket, so.”

“The lowest pits of Hell are for traitors, if we have to go by the _Inferno,_ ” Eponine corrects him lightly, and Grantaire tries to swallow the lump in his throat that reminds him _‘you are incapable…’_ , images flashing in distortion as he mocks them in his head and out loud with his words, finally letting sleep claim him while his friends die.

They had been killed and he had _slept._

The lowest pits of Dante’s hell are exactly for people like him.

“You’re hurting my hand,” Eponine’s voice breaks through, like waves crashing over the shore: she looks worried, eyes raking over his face. “It can take a while,” she says, and for once he knows that she _knows_. “Tell me if you get confused about anything or if you need to sit down. You’ll probably be having a headache. Bossuet got nosebleeds for a few days, and Musichetta nearly threw up at one point. Some memories sneak up on you, hit you like a sledgehammer.”

_“… of believing, of thinking…”_

_“I can’t imagine anyone ever having the slightest inkling of love for you!”_

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he mumbles, and she squeezes his hand, clearly forgiving him for crushing hers before, and he forces himself to smile at her, slightly.

“You’re going to be alright,” Eponine assures him. “I’m… I’m sorry. I hope you’re going to be alright.”

Oh. He shifts closer to her and puts his arm around her shoulders. “Of course I am,” he says. “It’s fine, it really is.”

_“… of willing…”_

“I know you didn’t want to have them back.”

“Really, Eponine. It’s fine. It’s great even, I mean, lost and found right? Hooray.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she tells him, and Grantaire shrugs, because to be honest he thinks he should get points for at least trying.

 “I vote we start walking,” he says then, because they need to do something to distract themselves, and the skulls’ smiles looks like they have gotten wider, the shadows in the cave or whatever the hell this is moving in on them. There isn’t enough light to keep them at bay, and the water falling from above hits the ground like a steady drum-beat, marching-drums, guards coming to fight them, to kill them all.

_“… of living and of dying!”_

He lets Eponine lead the way, steering them down one of the corridors to the side, long, snaking hallways decorated with bones and Grantaire can’t help but wonder if they’re dead and this really is hell. He can’t tell, but maybe they’re moving downwards now, the air already chilly. The coldest pits for the traitors.

_“Let me sleep. I wish to only sleep.”_

*

 

 

Enjolras has only just made it inside the café, when his phone rings, and its Combeferre and Combeferre sounds frightened.

Combeferre is the epitome of calm, 99% of the time. The only time Enjolras has heard the other man this out of sorts…

Well, it wasn’t even in this life. And they were dying.

“What do you mean _gone,”_ he shouts, and people are staring, but he doesn’t care, _he can’t…_

“I don’t know,” Combeferre is shouting too, great, they’re shouting down the phone at each other, this is going so well. “Gavroche says there was a really loud sound like an alarm, and then a bright light and darkness, and the ground shook, and when he looked again they just weren’t there!”

Enjolras clenches the hand that is not holding the phone into a fist, nails digging into his palm so deep he can feel small drops of blood trickling over his fingers. _Redredred_. His brain is a dangerous mess, people don’t just _disappear_ , except Grantaire does that, actually, on a regular basis, and he had _promised_ , Enjolras is going to kill him if he sees him again, and tear and hold until he won’t leave again, until he can’t leave again.

When he sees him again. _When._ When.

The door at the other end of the café opens, and Mabeuf steps out, and Enjolras feels _calm_ again, like an icy sea, as he locks eyes with the elderly man, who only nods and looks apologetic, and that does not make Enjolras want to kill him less. Not in the slightest.

He takes a deep breath.

“Make sure Gavroche is safe,” he says. “Get everyone back to your place, see if anyone else is… is missing,” fuck, no, his voice is not breaking, he’s in control. “Try to see what you can find out, but _stay_ there and contact me as soon as you have any information. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t let anyone leave.” _Don’t fucking let anyone else disappear into thin air._

Combeferre agrees and hangs up, and Mabeuf is still waiting, looking eerily calm as Enjolras stalks over to him.

“Where is he?” he keeps his voice low, but his fists are shaking in anger. “What have you done to them?”

“I assure you, I did nothing,” Mabeuf says, and he sounds like he’s sorry and he looks the part as well, and Enjolras thinks he has never wanted to strangle another person so much in his life. “You used to trust and respect me, Enjolras. I hope you still do.”

“You’d earned it,” he says. “You’ve given me little reason to trust you now. You practically assault Grantaire and drag him into this when he’s trying to stay away. I want to know what you said to him. I want to know _what you did!”_

“Perhaps this is not the place…”

“This is the perfect place,” Enjolras says, because there are witnesses keeping him from murder, which is probably best for Mabeuf. And the man won’t as easily play tricks on him here. “Sit down.”

Mabeuf hesitates, but then he does as he is asked (as he is told), looking old and weary suddenly, and Enjolras tries to forget the brave man who had clasped his shoulder and told him to have faith, because he is not certain that it is the same man sitting before him.

“I assure you,” Mabeuf starts, without having been prodded for an answer. “That it is not in our intention to cause any of you harm. What we have been doing, we have been doing to keep you safe. That includes keeping you in the dark. As for Grantaire, I will admit to acting rashly and without thinking, when I approached him earlier. I felt great despair at the thought that my actions may have brought him in danger, and I wished to apologize and explain myself. It backfired. I did not mean it to. I took his memories as a gift, and not anything meant to be a curse.”

Enjolras’ head is reeling. “Why did you take his memories?”

“Because…” Mabeuf stops himself, looking resigned. “Because I thought, if he did not remember that he loved you, he could escape you.”

The confession leaves Enjolras sitting in stunned silence, feeling as if he’d just been hit with a brick.

“Escape…”

“I was under the impression, much like he, that his love for you was foolish,” Mabeuf continues, speaking as if every word isn’t another punch to Enjolras’ gut. “That he would be better off without it, because he was… well, he was reducing himself. Grantaire is a great man. He was not as long as you pulled him under.”

Enjolras clenches his jaw, trying to keep from shouting in protest, heavy lead in his stomach telling him that… that the words are ringing too true.

“I see now that I was mistaken, of course,” Mabeuf says. “And I have realized that it is not my place to meddle in affairs such as these. So I sent one of my men out in order to find a way to bring back Grantaire’s memories, and he found it, only… only our adversaries were close on his heels. What took your friends is a fail-safe of ours, used in a tight situation: it moves the intended people from this location to another, safer one. The target was the memories, and the goal to get the memories away from our adversaries, using the fail-safe. Grantaire and… was it Eponine? They were in the storm, unfortunately. I am not sure how the little boy escaped, but as far as I recall, he has always had a knack for it. And he understands these things very well – I do believe my man, ah, employed the young Thénardier’s help in acquiring back the missing memories.”

“You just said that it was you who made them disappear,” Enjolras grits out. “Your… your fail-safe…”

“Ah, but it wasn’t,” Mabeuf says. “I did not trigger the fail-safe, and few other people can. I don’t know who it did, and so I don’t know where exactly they are either, but please be assured that it is only used to keep you and your friends safe, and so, I can say with much conviction, that that is exactly what your friends are.”

“I don’t believe you,” Enjolras tells him, voice cold. “I have only your word that you are on our side, and that is your word against your actions. You say yourself that you took Grantaire’s memories. Then you refused to give us answers. Then Gavroche disappears for hours on end, and now two other of my people are gone, and you expect me to sit and nod when you tell me you’re trying to help?”

“I rather think you wouldn’t be you if you just rolled over and accepted anything anyone said to you,” Mabeuf says with a smirk, and that is _not_ helping Enjolras anger issues right now. “But this is, however, the truth of it.”

“Who is after us?” Enjolras snaps out. “Who was it that wanted Grantaire’s memories?”

“You must understand that I am not actually permitted to tell you this,” Mabeuf says, voice patient even in the face of Enjolras’ obvious anger. “There are rules, and those rules have been the guidelines of my life for over a hundred years now. Given the circumstances however, I will answer you to the best of my ability.”

“Then _get to it!”_

“Calm down,” Mabeuf tells him sternly. “I rather suspected… he has many names, the man who is after you. We have started to refer to him as Michael, one of the aliases he has used from time to time. He is… how shall I put it? He is the obverse of my leader. Of the woman who brought you back, the woman you are so reluctantly fighting for. He seeks chaos where she seeks order, and the only way to fight him and keep him at bay is through… well, human actions. Of goodness. She was… very impressed, with what you did, you and your friends. She saw your strength and your courage, and that is why you were chosen.”

“So we _are_ pawns,” Enjolras says. What was it Grantaire had said? Martyrs. Martyrs for a cause they hadn’t even picked themselves.

“Think of it as a reward as much as a burden – you got to be with your beloved this time around, didn’t you?”

“You mean the one you’ve _misplaced_ now?” the edges of his vision are turning red, and he wonders when it will disappear, when he will crash and feel helpless and hopeless and _lost_ instead of angry, because Grantaire is gone, and his only hope of seeing him again is sitting here before him, saying that he cannot help.

“It wasn’t him,” a new voice cuts through the thick air of the café, from the door-way to the side, and Enjolras can’t see him, will have to turn to see him, but Mabeuf has turned pale at the sight, eyes darting from the man in the doorway to Enjolras, pinning him in place, and he realizes Mabeuf doesn’t want him to look. “It was me, I am afraid. I failed in my duty.”

It is almost silly, that Mabeuf doesn’t want him to see. Enjolras doesn’t have to look, to know who it is. He recognizes the voice.

_“You have no chance at all. Why throw your lives away?”_

He turns and locks eyes with the man who killed him, and the man says, “I’m sorry,” and Enjolras is out of his chair, fist connecting with the officer’s face before he can even think about it, and to be honest, if he had given himself time to think about it, it would only have been to contemplate how to punch harder.

They both tumble to the floor, and he is vaguely aware that he is screaming, shouting, and there’s blood and accusations flying through the air, because he’d last seen this man when he was about to shoot Grantaire (and him, him as well, but Grantaire had been there, had stood beside him) and now Grantaire was _gone!_ And then several strong hands are pulling him away, workers and guests in the café, and Musichetta hissing in his ear is the only thing to make him stop struggling. He has a second to wonder what she’s doing here, _why aren’t you at Combeferre’s with the others_ , but he remembers that she’s working tonight and it is very possible a very worried Combeferre asked her to stay to the end of her shift to keep an eye on him. To stop him from trying to do exactly what he’s doing right now, possibly.

Mabeuf is kneeling next to the man on the floor, tilting up his head carefully as his nose bleeds, and it makes Enjolras insides burn watching that, even as he is still being restrained. Musichetta is an expert at calming situations like this down, however, and he is quickly left with just her and the two others still kneeling on the ground, the crowd disappearing, emergency-calls cancelled and guards lowered. For them, at least.

“I told you not to come here, Gabriel,” Mabeuf is telling him, but the soldier – Gabriel – appears to not be listening, still looking at Enjolras with sadness in his eyes.

“I owed him an apology,” Gabriel says, getting to his feet slowly, a bit vary as if he expects Enjolras to attack him again any minute.

Good.

“You’re back,” Enjolras states, testily, trying to keep the anger at bay, because he can kill this man _– ‘fire!’ –_ and it would do no good. Gabriel smiles at him, with bitterness, and Musichetta’s hand on his arm tightens its grip.

“Punishment,” he says. “We’re on the same side now.”

Enjolras’ eyes flitter to Mabeuf. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Listen,” Gabriel takes a hesitant step forward, stopping when Enjolras tenses up again and Musichetta glares. “I was charged with getting Grantaire’s memories back to him,” he says. “They were tied to an object, and I had managed to locate it, but I was being chased. I gave it to Gavroche while I distracted my pursuers. I should have brought it to him directly: I could have protected him, and the girl. I am so very sorry.”

Enjolras finds he is almost ridiculously thankful that Gabriel wasn’t there to ‘protect’ Eponine and Grantaire: he wants the man nowhere near them.

He wants neither of them anywhere near him and his friends.

“Her name is Eponine,” he says. “You’re going to tell me how to get them back. And you’re going to be quick about it, before we get kicked out of the café or before I decide that you are wasting my time.”

“But I’m afraid we already are,” Mabeuf says. “Because we can’t help you. I’m sorry, but we have no way of getting your friends back, or even knowing where they are.”

“We’re done here,” Musichetta breaks through before Enjolras can say anything, and that’s probably a good thing, because he was already steeling himself to walk forward and _hurt_ again, because this can’t be true, it can’t, but Mabeuf looks at him with pitying eyes and Musichetta is pulling him away.

“They can find their way back,” Gabriel calls after him, and Enjolras ignores the hope that shoots through him at those words. He won’t listen to him. He can’t.

They get outside, and are immediately faced with a very worried-looking Cosette.

“Is everything alright?” she asks, and Enjolras clenches his jaw. “Combeferre sent me.”

Combeferre is getting behind on it: he must know that Cosette is possibly the last person Enjolras wants to see right now. After the one whose face he had just punched, of course.

“Go home,” he tells her, and his tone is short and clipped. She narrows her eyes at him.

“I’m just as worried about Grantaire as you are,” she claims, and it’s tension built up over three weeks, three weeks of calm because Grantaire had been there, smiling and laughing during the day, flushed skin pressed against his in the night, but he’s _not here now_ , and Enjolras snaps.

“I fucking doubt it,” he says, voice even colder than it had been when talking to Mabeuf. “I fucking doubt you care much about anything but yourself and your precious little quest to save your mother. And now, lo and behold, two of the only ones still loyal enough to actually help you are gone, so you’re acting all worried.”

“Enjolras!” Musichetta sounds like she’s ready to slap him, but she doesn’t. Cosette has gone slightly pale, but holds her ground.

“That’s not true,” she says. “I didn’t… I felt awful, you know that. I never meant for him to get hurt.”

“But he did.”

“That’s not her fault…” Musichetta tries to intervene, but Cosette interrupts her.

“I take full responsibility for that,” she says, and it’s not making Enjolras less angry, at all. “And I’m sorry that you feel so at loss about this, that you have to blame me for it as well. I love Grantaire: I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

“You don’t know him!” he’s shouting again now, but at least they’re out on the street and not inside the café, where things could so easily get out of hand.

Cosette’s eyes are aflame, and he wonders, because Grantaire sometimes describes him like that, all fiery vengeance – wonders if this is how alike they are. “Do you?” she asks. Enjolras fights the urge to punch the wall beside them, to keep screaming at her until she hits him, or until Musichetta kicks him or both. Anything to make it hurt, make him distracted.

“Look,” Musichetta says, finally asserting herself, getting in-between the fighting children. “Enjolras is clearly upset right now,” he almost laughs because _clearly upset!_ “And we can discuss this in the morning.”

“I’ll be there,” Cosette says, and looks pale and drawn and Enjolras almost feels bad for speaking to her so harshly, but he can’t get it out of his head, can’t ignore the images of the blood gushing out of Grantaire, life leaving him as a cold shell instead of the most vibrant thing in his life.

Musichetta doesn’t let go of him until they are outside Combeferre’s flat, pulling him down the street and calling the others to quickly update them on the situation: the lights are turned on in there, but it is eerily quiet, Combeferre opening the door with tired eyes.

“Everyone’s here,” he says, and doesn’t say _everyone but Eponine and Grantaire_ , and Enjolras is grateful. “Most are asleep, I told them to get some rest. Azelma’s been crying, but Feuilly calmed her down. Valjean, ah, uh, he said he had some business to do, but I’m not sure…”

“It’s fine,” Enjolras mumbles, not really expecting the older man to follow orders. He also doesn’t want the other man to kill him for the way he’s just spoken to Cosette: but then again, she can clearly fight her own battles.

They get into the living-room of the flat, where Courfeyrac and Bahorel are sitting, the latter by the window, blowing smoke into the fresh air outside. Enjolras thinks it’s a sign of how bad things are that Combeferre is letting him smoke inside, window open or not.

“So,” Courfeyrac’s face is pale and drawn, his mouth set in a hard line. Usual smile completely gone, and it hits Enjolras, like nothing else leading up to now has, and he needs to set down on the sofa next to him, feeling all energy leaving his body.

“So,” Enjolras repeats for him, and he sounds angry and tired at the same time. “We can do nothing, apparently. Nothing but wait.”

Bahorel snorts. “Yeah, because that’s going to happen.”

When there is no reply, he turns his head to look out at them with disbelief. “C’mon,” he says. “You’re… we’re going to do _something_.”

“To be quite honest,” Enjolras says, and the words are like tearing the own flesh off his bones. “I have no idea what to do.”

He doesn’t. He has not prepared for this: for all that he had been terrified of Grantaire not being there with him, he had gone to lengths to ensure that he would stay, not made a back-up plan in case that didn’t happen. And he knows why: knows he wouldn’t even know where to begin with a plan like that, even though he had done fine before, with Grantaire nothing but a steady and comforting beat in the background, but now he _needs_ him, he… he rather thinks he breathes Grantaire, like Bahorel breathes in the smoke from his cigarette, dark eyes fixed on Enjolras.

“Are you telling me that you’re just going to sit here and mope, until Grantaire, the guy who can get lost in his own flat, finds his way back from Narnia or wherever the fuck he is?” his voice is sharp, and Enjolras thinks, for all that Bahorel enjoys the harshness of life, he has never heard him really angry like this before. Angry with fists, yes, many times – not angry with words, like Enjolras himself always is.

“Eponine is with him as well,” Courfeyrac says, eyes moving to Combeferre who is still standing behind Enjolras: he can feel his best friend tense even from over here, and if pieces of him wasn’t currently being chipped away in pain, he’d make a comment, some form of remark, _‘you’d suit each other, fuck, Combeferre, I’m so sorry’_ , but he can’t. So he doesn’t.

“That doesn’t mean we should just sit and count tiles in the ceilings until they _maybe_ find their way back!” Bahorel is shouting now, Combeferre shushing him so he doesn’t wake the others. He calms down slightly, but gets up from his seat, leaving the cigarette in the soda-can that is his makeshift ashtray. “That’s bullshit,” he hisses instead, voice lowered only slightly.

“Bahorel…”

He’s walking over now, crossing the room until he’s standing right in front of Enjolras.

“I haven’t said anything, because you’re both my friends and I figured you’d either sort out your shit by yourself, or just be done with it. But if you are giving up on him like this, then I will fucking hurt you, do you understand?”

Enjolras gapes at him. “I’m not…”

“You fucking are.”

“Bahorel, I’m…”

“So stop it, or I will punch you to the ground, do you understand me?!”

Enjolras swallows, heavily, and the fog clears. “Fine,” he says. “Fine,” he gets up. “I need some paper and a pen,” he walks towards Combeferre’s study before anyone else can say anything, and he’s at the door, pushing it open, when he suddenly hears Combeferre curse and his hurried steps to…

Possibly to stop him, but by then it is already too late, because the door is open, and Enjolras sees.

It’s red and gold, light brown and dark blue, and a few shades of green and black intermingled, there to show that the scene is from a real place, not some realistic imaginary, that it’s a real person, backlit by the rusty colours of reality as much as the golden shine of light hitting the man in the middle of the exquisite painting, the man with his head held high and his jaw set in determination.

It’s him.

_It’s him._

“You… weren’t really supposed to see that,” Combeferre mumbles, coming up to stand beside him. “I found it a couple of days ago, and I meant to… I didn’t know what I meant to do with it, but I wasn’t going to destroy it. I thought… maybe Grantaire would want it, when he got his memories back, if he ever did. I suppose… you would both benefit from seeing it.”

_Benefit._

Combeferre is looking at him intently. “You hadn’t… he never showed this to you, did he?”

Enjolras mind is still reeling around the word. _Benefit._ Is it to benefit, he wonders, when his heart is slowly crawling its way out his throat, trying to choke him? Is it to benefit, when his limbs feel weak, and his mind grows heavy, because he remembers every word, every insult, every verbal blow, and if he remembers, then so did Grantaire, and yet he still painted him like… like _that._

Is it to benefit, knowing that he quite possibly won’t ever be able to thank him?

“No,” Enjolras says. “I… I never saw it.”

He’s faltering, he knows, and he almost thinks it is good that Grantaire is not here right now, because he knows he won’t be able to keep his promise after this, knows he will want Grantaire to remember, with every fibre of his being, needs him to explain, needs him to understand, if he sees him again ( _when_ he sees him again) why he’ll be thanking him every day for the rest of their lives.

“I need some air,” he says, and Combeferre lets him go, though he probably wishes to follow and reassure like he does so well. He steps out of the flat, too quickly for anyone else to stop him, and ends up sitting down on the step in front of the door, breathing in slowly, breathing out even slower.

He can do this. He can. He has faced worse, and he will not let something like this cripple him, not when there are others counting on him, not when _Grantaire_ might be counting on him, and Eponine as well. Bahorel was right, he cannot give up now, especially not when he has not even tried. He wouldn’t deserve Grantaire, then, would be the coward he had so harshly told the other man he was, when in truth, it seemed to be the other way around.

He’d frozen when Grantaire had, so long ago, stood up and taken his hand and _died with him_ , and Enjolras was not going to let that be for nothing. He was not going to let that go, not without telling him first. Grantaire needed to know that. _He_ needed Grantaire to know that.

There are steps echoing down the streets, but Enjolras doesn’t look up, even as a shadow falls over the slight light around him.

“Done hiding?” he asks, and Gabriel shifts, a little uncomfortably.

“I want to help,” he says, and Enjolras takes another deep breath, to keep calm, to not snap _‘I think you’ve done quite enough’_ , because he cannot allow his feelings to get in the way of what might be his best chance. “I have… Mabeuf thinks it is too dangerous, but I might know where they are. And I want to help.”

Enjolras finally lifts his head, and gives him a hard look. “Good,” he says. “If you betray us, I’ll be throwing your body in the Seine.”

Gabriel smiles. Enjolras lets himself hope.

 

*

 

“I need to sit down,” Grantaire feels like they have been walking for hours, but it is impossible to tell, in the darkness, Eponine’s phone is not working and his own has been smashed to pieces, lying on some Parisian street. His head is spinning and pounding, he’s nauseous and he keeps getting flashes, busting Gavroche in stealing a game-boy, gently teasing a lovely woman selling bread outside the church, bullets piercing his skin, _one, two, three_ and another for this life as well, and he _tries_ to keep it under a lid, but he’s pretty sure the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results, and they’re already running in circles.

He’s collapsed against a bit of the wall that only holds what looks to be the bone from an arm, and he can practically hear his entire body sigh in relief as it gets to relax. As much as he _can_ relax on the cold, dirty ground, with his thoughts dancing on the edge of a knife. At least Grantaire is used to his mind playing tricks on him – and he’s used to Enjolras disdainful looks thrown his way. He is surprised that there are so many, adding to the pile, and then he is surprised at his own surprise.

He isn’t sure what he had been expecting.

“He _hated_ me,” the words slip out, and Eponine’s eyes settle on him, shining clear in the darkness. She’s still standing up, leaning against the narrow wall across from him, arms folded over her chest as if she’s trying to huddle in on the little warmth her clothes offer.

“Enjolras?” she asks, like she needs to asks, because of course it’s Enjolras. It’s always Enjolras.

“I can’t really blame him,” Grantaire keeps talking. “I mean, I was even worse back then. I had even less to… to live for,” it’s painful saying it, and it’s painful seeing the words get to Eponine, but it isn’t like she doesn’t know. Like she doesn’t sometimes slip in beside him in the dark of the night, clinging, because that’s what you do with family, especially family that is as fucked up as yourself. You cling. “And dear _cricket_ , Gros was a nuisance! Brilliant man, of course, though for the love of me, I can’t understand why I didn’t accept another apprenticeship, I had lots of offers, did you know that? They all saw my work, and they loved it, and Gros snorted and said I used too much gold, and I think I wanted to prove him wrong.”

“You can never use too much gold,” Eponine says, and he can _see_ her fighting not to roll her eyes at him.

“Don’t be sassy, young lady.”

She catches his eyes “Enjolras didn’t… I’m sure he didn’t really hate you, back then. I don’t think he would have allowed you to hang around if he had. You thought he hated you now as well, but he didn’t. And then he _really_ didn’t hate you.”

“He should.”

“Grantaire…”

“ _Fuck_. Do you know what I did, Eponine? On the Barricade… except of course you didn’t, you were dead by then. Is that a weird thought, that you were one of the first to die? But what I did was, I fucking passed out. It’s one thing hearing everyone say it, it’s quite another to know that I abandoned them all when they were _fighting,_ people I call friends, and _went to sleep_. What the hell does that say about me?! I… I left them.”

“You knew they were all going to die,” Eponine says. “You were just scared. I was scared too. Even when Marius came over and held me, I was scared.”

He’s shaking, and he notices that she is as well, a tremble in the darkness that he can only make out because he knows her so well. Knows her now. He had no idea who she was back then – back then she had merely been the first one to fall, the first of many. First of them all.

“I thought it was raining,” she tells him. “And I thought it was so fitting, because it always rains, doesn’t it? Rain is so sad. But it wasn’t, it was a clear sky, I was just covered in so much of my own blood I thought it couldn’t possibly be anything but rainwater and I didn’t…”

Grantaire shoots off his feet and wraps his arms around her as she continues to shake and cry, low sobs into his shoulder, and he determinedly ignores his own tears falling, because _fuck_ , this isn’t fair, it’s not fair that she should get this, that she could get a chance at a life that is just slightly less shitty than the other one, and then still have the old one thrust back into her face, because Fate is a bastard that cares nothing for the plight of regular people.

“It’s over now, it’s okay,” he tells her, and that is possibly the biggest lie he has ever told, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “It’s okay. It’s over. We’re not dying… well, we might die of starvation down here, or thirst or whatever, but apart from that.”

She snorts, face still buried in his jacket. “You’re an idiot,” her words are muffled, so he pretends not to hear, just strokes her hair and let her get some semblance of control back.

“Alright?” he asks when she pulls away, and she nods, and then her eyes widen in shock, staring at something behind him.

“Grantaire…”

“My apologies…” Grantaire whirls around to see the speaker.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Javert says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember that both Mabeuf and Enjolras are seeing the situation from a very limited perspective: Enjolras is not the fault of Grantaire’s problems, even if Mabeuf insinuates it here and Enjolras accepts the thought. Grantaire’s demons are his own, and Enjolras are not responsible for them – Mabeuf misunderstood the situation, seeing it more as Grantaire believing he could never live up to Enjolras and therefore falling into misery, and not the fact that he was already miserable before meeting Enjolras. It is clear to many just how capable Grantaire actually is: he keeps it pretty well hidden why he keeps letting himself fail, and an outsider could very well misinterpret the situation; especially Mabeuf, who feels much sympathy for Grantaire in this story and is therefore biased towards him. If anything, Enjolras makes him ‘better’, as much as he makes him fear failure even more: _‘Grantaire, beside Enjolras, became someone once more…’_
> 
> An anon on tumblr asked me for my headcanons on the characters, so I’ve made a [list](http://brightasasunflower.tumblr.com/post/51651115016/an-anon-asked-me-for-my-headcanon-cast-for-hotel).


End file.
